insta-surreal

At Rutgers, I do a fair amount of traveling, whether it's biking to everywhere on Busch, or occasionally taking the bus to Livingston. Now me, I'm not much of an mp3-player listener. For the short trips I'm taking, I find it too hasslesome to bother with getting the headphones out and putting them on, and finding the right playlist to listen to, and all that stuff.

However, I realized something just recently.

Music is awesome when played in the background.

To what? Really, anything.

I love how simply listening to music suddenly enhances the surroundings I'm in. It causes everything to take on this movie-kinda feel. On bus rides, it's perfect for when I'm sitting alone, watching the scenery pass by, especially when coupled with the weather, whether it be sunny or rainy. It's also awesome for biking, creating an entirely different feeling as I'm zooming around campus, watching people go by, taking in the surroundings. One time, I was biking and listening to music as it was snowing at night, and it just felt so cool, for lack of a better word.

Music just makes every setting and every normal activity more interesting, more thought-provoking, more fulfilling.

Works best with punk rock. :P

One time, I was in Newman's room watching a Devils game on his 42" (though there wasn't MSG+ in HD, unfortunately). I was watching by myself, and Newman and Paul were blasting some loud hip-hop kinda music, so I couldn't really hear what was going on in hockey. Right then, watching hockey felt so AWESOME, like, more than it does usually. After a minute or so, I realized this was attributed to the fact that when I watched hockey videos on YouTube, usually of ridiculously-hard-hitting checks, this was the type of music that was played.

Music is great.

Speaking of music, I was just at Menlo Park Mall yesterday with Hilary, and we were in the Sony Style store, randomly checking out stuff. We tried on these Sony headphones, like MDV-700's or something, and the sound quality is ridiiiiiiculous. I didn't know sound quality even got that good. Dang. They retailed for $150.

Speaking of the mall, Brookstone had a sale on these two Tempurpedic pillows, and this one in particular. It was the SupremePillow, on sale for $70. It was a decent sale price. Now, I don't know anything about Tempurpedic stuff except for the fact that they're extremely comfortable, but I really wanted this pillow. Hm..

I'm at home on break now. And really bored. I wanna play Scattergories!

impossible or impractical?

I don't know how common this is with other people, but I have lots of things I love doing, yet occasionally forget about when I don't experience them for a while. A while could mean a few weeks, up to a few years.

One thing that comes to mind is badminton. Yes, I LOVE playing badminton. Yet, I haven't played at all for the last three weeks and I didn't even realize it. Why is that? Well, in any case, there are just so many of these little things that I've "wanted to do" and "been obsessed with" that pop up every now and then that I'm reminded of, and when it all comes together, do I really have time for all of them?

This past week, there was a sale at Borders, and I remembered I had wanted to look up Hugo award winners and nominees to read some really good science fiction, which I had been thinking about for the longest time. (I ended up buying A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge on eBay because it was $3 cheaper. :D)

Yesterday, I continued reading Suzuka (after having finished the anime three years ago and wanting to continue the series in the manga), and finished it today. It really is a great series overall, and it was very much worth it. I just discovered onemanga.com. I feel so late. And yes, I felt that post-anime depression afterwards for a while. :[ That brought my attention to other series I had wanted to finish, such as Code Geass R2, Prince of Tennis, and others.

Today, hearing someone mention snowboarding sparked my love of it again, and it instantly made me think of opportunities to hit the slopes this year. I proceeded to gtalk Mark Liu and blab on and on with him about going to Vermont so that I might get to go again this year. Man, MtCreek weekend adult tickets are $62!)

When I think about it, though, is it possible to do all of this? Badminton, manga/anime, reading, snowboarding, spending time with friends, and including more intensive coursework come second semester?

Though, [un]fortunately, I don't have a computer good enough to play the Sims 3.

Yet.